A2 MEDIA PRODUCTION EVALUATION

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Within our media product we develop and challenge the typical conventions of the heist genre to construct a teaser trailer. Within the heist genre the type cast for our characters consisted of stereotypes to either play the typical character roles usually seen in the genre (e.g. an Asian Computer Hacker), which the target audience would be able to identify in our trailer. Our media product developed upon typical conventions and plots usually seen in real media products; heist films such as the Ocean’s trilogy, Bank Job etc. whereby an alliance attempt to rob a bank or prized artefact, although we try to remain faithful to the genre, our heist concept in our text is a plan to steal a code from a corrupt firm, which intertwined sub-genres such as thriller and crime.

With the direction of our media product we chose recognisable character roles that conform to the heist genre i.e. the mastermind, we opted for the traditional male, clever and assertive leader (e.g. Danny Ocean – Oceans trilogy, Charlie Croker - Italian job) that we represented through dialogue between the mastermind and his subordinates and use of cinematography; framing and close ups to underline his importance. The inclusion of a tech guy we used a stereotype to represent the character role, which we cast an Asian male to play the computer wiz/ hacker and another typical character role we included was a muscle man which we represented through mise-en-scene e.g. in a gym location, using props- dumbbells and his character with a stub shave, rugged look (influences such as Jason Statham in the remake Italian Job and Bank Job films). The plot of our media product initially included a female protagonist, in doing so we intended to challenge the typical male cast role (for the protagonist) however due to our actress withdrawing during the filming process we replaced the female character with a male character who played the protagonist ‘inside source’ an opted change we received from audience feedback. …

The conventions of a film trailer our media product conforms to using the conventional form typically used in action / heist film trailers. By using establishing location shots and key frames establishing each character with the aid of title names we found this was a typical convention used in heist film trailers when establishing character roles; the mastermind, tech guy & muscle man were represented also through mise-en- scene.

The combination of our main product and ancillary texts linked together very effectively. To go with our media product we created a film magazine cover and film poster to promote the main product (trailer). The magazine cover I created used an image of one of the main characters from the main text i.e. the muscle man. I chose to use the muscle man as a selling point to appeal to my target readers effectively drawing in male and female readers with an iconic (Bad boy) masculine image made obvious through costume and hair to relate with a young male audience (teen+) and also reversibly providing a attractive/ sex appeal to a female audience with the image. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Magazine cover main images of muscle man – hoodie gives off a bad boy look and right image w/ open shirt revealing masculine chest.

The typography for the magazine title is in a contemporary style in bold white font to attract the target readers furthermore the title uses word play to establish the association to filming / movies “TAKE 1” as an effective film magazine masthead. The layout of my magazine closely imitates the typical conventions usually found on a real magazine cover with the use of cost, puffs and sell lines; A quotation from the actor on my magazine cover combines both media texts recognising the existence of my main media product as well as the inclusion of real text references (article on Emma Watson, puff image of Dev Patel etc.) I feel I have created a magazine cover that supports my media product with promoting the media film in a similar method to media institutions (Total Film, Empire magazine).

The second ancillary text was to create a promotional film poster for the main product. Before doing this I researched existing film posters and analyzed the particular layout from posters in the heist genre, in doing so I observed the most common codes and conventions and followed suit keeping my media text conventional in layout design, so this will be easily recognized by the target audience. In combination with the main product I used various conventions (key motifs, connotation & denotation) that relate to the heist genre and themes in my trailer to translate these onto my promotional poster, In addition to clearly establishing the main characters and my film’s title for the target audience. Doing so, the poster is used effectively as a marketing tool for the main product.

This combination of the trailer, magazine and poster is very effective, as all 3 allow the film’s promotion to potentially market across several media (e.g., youtube, blogs - trailer, retail stores- magazine, public areas –poster). This is very valuable to attract the target audiences, increasing the awareness of my product.

What have you learned from your audience feedback? Audience feedback throughout the construction of the media product and ancillary text has pointed out various constructive criticisms to help improve our products to appeal more to the target audience. During the different stages over the project, audience feedback has be helpful in making changes and inclusion to the media product for instance replacing our female protagonist with the next most common character role/ type (“an insider”) from our genre chosen by our sample target audience group. Within the planning stage after constructing an audience questionnaire we asked a sample teen audience and adult audience various questions relating to our genre (e.g. the typical conventions) and their expectations from a media product of that genre (findings like the breakdown of the plot/ plan). Overall the questionnaire confirmed and provided helpful conclusive choices to include in our media product ranging from the character role types and revealing how much of the narrative in form of dialogue, fast pace action etc.

Audience feedback given to my magazine cover, once I made my first draft I received feedback opinions over my main image regarding its appeal, the general consensus I received was the actor was ideally photogenic for creating the hard boy image I wanted however more critical feedback included the choice of costume i.e. the wool hoodie, therefore I made amendments with changing for a more conventional costume i.e. black jacket & white shirt with open collar to match the “hard guy” representation I aimed to convey, thus retook another image with the actor also looking directly towards the camera to engage the target audience.

In the research stage I used computer technology i.e. internet to analyse magazine covers, posters and film trailers to gain knowledge on conventions used in each construction of the different text before creating my on media product and ancillary texts. Using the Internet can obviously provide archives and images of existing magazine covers and film posters found on various websites and also official film promotional sites that have similar graphic/ poster adverts that are constructed using similar conventions. (movie title, image of main character(s), film tagline, release date.) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Examples of different film posters Film poster with just a main portrait image such as Orphan and Wolverine can also be used as online advertisement found on (/film)websites.

The different media technologies used in the planning stage consisted of various resources available to us in college; Computer technology and more specifically web 2.0 applications such as ‘wiki spaces’ and facebook (permits users to upload user generated content) allowed us to share planning documents such as shot list & location pictures over the Internet with quick and easy access. The wiki space was used to electronically upload all planning documents for our coursework that would be easy to display for the examiner to see the preliminary research stages before making our media product.

Constructing the main product (trailer) our group recorded all the video footage needed on a video camera (Sony handycam using a tripod). We then used a USB cable to transfer the footage from the camera to the PCs where our footage was backed up and saved. Acknowledging our trailer had to be less than 2 minutes we chose select clips from our footage to be made into the trailer, in order to do this we used Adobe Premier Pro an editing suite software that allowed us to trim, rearrange and edit the speed and durations of the video clips. The software allowed us to capture sound and video at a smooth f rate in conjuncture with importing music (free rights) from the Internet to utilize in the trailer soundtrack. In addition to the title and video effects available to us in Adobe premier pro, we also used Adobe Photoshop to create title screens in our trailer.

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evaluation In The evaluation process I have used several media technologies to complete this (in addition to creating hard hardcopies of my work using printers & scanners), I have created my production evaluation in powerpoint slide format outlining the different production stages of my media products which I will be able to present back to my audience, in addition my presentation will be recorded using a video camera (and edited if neccersary on premier pro), as a video presentation for the examiner. However overall the most frequent and helpful media technology used was the internet which is used as media to exhibit my media product on web 2.0 applications (video streams, blogs etc.) that are accessible to anyone for viewing.